NanoRacks Puts the Screws to its Deployment Problems

Almost exactly a month ago, I wrote about the faulty NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) on the International Space Station (ISS–don’t forget to read the update–there’s some more accurate information there). It essentially launched very small satellites when it shouldn’t have and didn’t launch when it was expected to. According to this SpaceNews.com article posted last […]

Everyone’s worried but SpaceX

This particular article highlights some interesting differences in philosophy about success and risk (and there is a link) between established players and SpaceX. For opinion, sadly not about space operations, but rather the future of them, read further. The scenario: SpaceX has decided to upgrade their rocket engines to more powerful ones, and update the […]

Why space matters and explaining imaging satellite operations, Part 2

In Part 1 of explaining imaging satellite operations, we assumed a low earth orbit (LEO) satellite is one of the better options for getting great “Earth-selfies” with a camera on board. We also learned the range of LEOs is pretty big: 99 to 1200 miles. But we also know closer is mainly better (see previous post […]

Why space matters and explaining picture-taking (imaging) satellite operations, Part 1

Yes, it’s rocket science, but… …it doesn’t take fancy non-English math symbols to explain a lot of the basics. So, I’ll start with something I think people have asked lately: “What can they see?” (We’ll get to “What can they hear?” in a later post.) Also, please note this will take a few posts to […]

When unemployed–blog!

Okay, so my company was told to cut our contract because the government was concerned about budget. So, here I am as part of that cut, looking for work, cutting junipers, riding the motorcycle, and just trying to stay busy. But I do think there are some important things going on in space, which is […]